


the radio station plays in our teeth

by lightningwaltz



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, F/F, don't go to the dog park
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The AU where Ymir and Christa are Night Vale radio station interns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the radio station plays in our teeth

**Author's Note:**

> This one... kind of has spoilers for later chapters of SnK. They're obscured by how I had to change things around for AU purposes. But yeah, tread lightly if you're nervous about that sort of thing!

Whenever Christa sets foot in Night Vale’s radio station, the strident air conditioner gives her brain freeze. 

But, as she futilely wrings out her ponytail, she reflects that it could be worse. This she knows full well, having just escaped the post-thunder storm outdoors. On the rare occasions when the sky opens up over her town, the dry desert air promptly rejects any hint of rain. The ensuing humidity boils up from the ground and sets like Jell-O.

In fact, it’s literally Jell-O. 

Christa looks up at the clock, and feels a mix of relief and smugness. She is the only one determined enough to brave the weather.

And therefore, she is also the only one dutiful (yes, _dutiful_ ) enough to be on time for their scheduled broadcast. More than that, she is early.

Her flip-flops make squelching noises, as she strides across the lime-green linoleum floor. _No one_ is here, right now, and the walls thrum with the memories of radio shows of the past, and all the radio shows to come. The evocative silence sinks into her skin, her hair follicles, and under her nails. And for once Christa feels capable of all sorts of things. 

Ruminations aside, a shower is her main goal. That and changing into the second pair of clothes she has stored away out here. Just in case.

(The community radio station had had one installed after the Glow Cloud Incident. No one could remember all the details, but at least one employee had run into the building, screaming in Sumerian, and dripping with blood from dead animal carcasses. So. It was best to help everyone stay hygienic.) 

 

*

Once Christa emerges into the Intern Containment Area, it’s not difficult to notice she has company at last. Ymir tends to draw Christa’s attention as easily as the high school gym attracts unscheduled planes from New York City.

“Everything’s delayed an hour,” Ymir says. “Including the setting of the sun. I think.” She’s seated on the stations beaten up couch, clad in a dry hoodie and shorts, and eating something… invisible from a tupperware container. 

“Did the weather clear up?” Christa asks, taking a seat in the swivel chair by the computer. “Is that how you got here?”

“Yeahhhh.” Ymir draws the word out for such a long time that Christa wonders if she’s being mocked. 

But it’s worthwhile to have company, all the same. Christa had once been suspicious about having a coworker at all. It was an unorthodox move, after all, having two interns for any particular radio show. Let alone something as unpopular as the Fun “Facts” Science Hour. But community radio was like war; you bonded with the unlikeliest of people, or you died. Much to her surprise, Christa found herself leaning towards the former these days. 

Christa pulls out a folder of documents that say things like “OH GOD THE END TIMES ARE HERE” in size 62 font, and scans them into PDF files. The machine whirs to life, and the lights from it are probably shining on her face, making her glow green. 

Ymir scrutinizes her from over on the couch.

“Christa, did you really walk here? In this humidity?” 

“Yes.” She pulls out another piece of paper (“WE ARE ALL LIZARDS.”) “It wasn’t hard.” _No, it wasn’t hard. It was nearly impossible, that’s all._ That thought makes her heart swell with a violent kind of pride. “What are you eating anyway?” 

“The humidity Jell-O.” Ymir says it so nonchalantly that Christa wants to flip a desk. Or laugh. “Hey, it was free.”

“That’s still weird. Why would you eat that?” 

“I don’t know, Christa, why would you go for a _walk_ in it?”

Cue a face-of where neither of them quite emerge victorious. Instead Christa grabs a plastic spoon; the intern for the Dubstep Gregorian Chants Corner keeps them in a candy bowl on the communal desk and never seems to use them. 

Christa then plops down next to Ymir, and goes for the Jell-O. It tastes like nothing in particular, although a slight buzzing sound fills her ears. 

“I think you got some of it that had been hit by lightning,” Christa muses.

Ymir sets the tupperware aside, where it balances precariously on a coffee table book. (The book appears to be devoted to pictures taken of the Waterfront Area back in 1776.) 

“ _I_ think I know why you walked here. You’re a thrill seeker with a death wish, aren’t you?” 

Trust Ymir to casually launch _that_ thought out there. Like it was some sort of grenade.

“No you’re not right about-”

“What am I not right about? You trying to atone for having a parent from Desert Bluffs?” 

“How did you know about that?” There is a crack in Christa’s voice, like the nonexistent fault lines below Night Vale.

Ymir shrugs. “The number stations pick up on interesting conversations sometimes.”

Christa knows what Ymir talking about. There is an area out past that wastelands, and even beyond the nuclear oasis area (where many people now sell illicit wheat and wheat by-products.) A person can adjust their radio dial and pick up on frequencies where mysterious voices chant strings of imaginary numbers. And, at some point, out there in uncharted territory, Ymir had decoded certain facts about Christa. 

“Why are you bringing this up?” Christa thinks she can feel poison (and/or angry tears) leaking out of her eyes. But, even though she wants to make Ymir stop talking, it also seems like it would be nice to hug her. 

Ymir slings her arm around Christa’s shoulders. “I know you want to go to the dog park.” 

“Okay? And?” 

“It’s just that…” Ymir sighs out of the corner of her mouth, sending her bangs floating. “Going to the dog park is fucking dangerous. If you do it, you should do it for yourself. Not to appease anyone else. You know what I mean?” 

“I…”

“Look, I have my secrets too-”

The door to the studio slammed, and voices float into the Intern Containment Area. Apparently the humidity cleared up mere minutes ago. Christa turned to look at her companion, new questions on the tip of her tongue.

But Ymir abruptly stood up and walked out of the room at full speed. 

_Well then._

 

*

Every time Christa survives the annual Street Cleaning Day, it puts her in a ferociously idealistic mood. This year is no different; her house constrains her body, and her body constrains her spirit. So she runs outside into the- thankfully- wholly clear air. The sidewalks are so clean she can see her reflection, and noontime fireflies cluster around her knees and hips. Once again Christa is the only person around for several blocks.

Once again she’s a woman on a mission.

When she slows to a halt- winded, her muscles aching- she stops at the dog park. Christa stares into it, and it feels like flipping off her family members in the city council. 

She’s laughing when she catches sights of Ymir. Her friend is just beyond the gate, inside the park, wreathed in darkness. The radio station’s logo glowing on her hoodie. It’s both the biggest surprise in the world, and somehow not a surprise at all. 

“Christa… You better not be here seeking death. We talked about this.” 

Christa reaches through the bar of the gate, and grabs onto Ymir’s hand. It’s important that she _know_. “No, I’m here because I realized I like being alive.” It sounds so simple, and yet it’s so revolutionary. Christa tightens her grips. “Now it’s your turn: What’s your secret?” 

After a second’s hesitation, Ymir used her free hand to pull her hood up over her forehead. The world around them lurches and shakes, and Christa ears ring with a full chorus of bells. Her whole life, she’s been warned to not look at a hooded figure. Not directly, not out of the corner of her eye. Never.

Yet here she stands, face-to-face with one, and holding hands through the gates of the dog park. 

In this form, Ymir has features like every person on the planet, and she has features like no person (or monster) at all. It’s like gazing into the Marianas trench, or having a staring contest with the furthest reaches of space. But when Christa closes her eyes, she can hear the frequencies that cluster around Ymir. Conversations they’ve had, conversations to come. And the deep, galvanizing familiarity of it all strikes a chord deep within Christa.

When Ymir talks, her words come out as crackling static, but underneath Christa hears the message; _now you know._

“Now we both know,” Christa replies.


End file.
